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What 100 heterosexual women revealed about achieving an orgasm in the bedroom

November 11, 2020

Illustration of a women sprawled out on a sofa

Photo credit: Nogasms

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You have heard about the gender pay gap, but have you heard of the orgasm gap? Women are not only paid less but also orgasm much less than men.

According to a study by the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy — 4 out of 5 women don't orgasm during heterosexual sex — for reasons known — unknown. This disparity is called the "Pleasure Gap" or the "Orgasm Gap." From the kitchen to the board-room, women have come a long way, then why does a gap exist in the bedroom?

To get to the bottom of this, I created Nogasms, an investigative project aimed to bring forth barriers that inhibit women from having an orgasm. I present to you insights gathered from medicine, psychology, culture, and real women — and their orgasms or lack thereof.

1. Women take longer to get there

Women, on average, take thrice as long to get turned on than men and need extended foreplay to have an orgasm of any kind. This is why, in a 'hookup' or a 'quicky' situation, women rarely orgasm and usually fake one. There is just not enough time for women to reach from zero to turned on if you give her just a 10-minute window.

But most individuals neither understand nor acknowledge this difference. Usually, the activity ends once the man orgasms, which is funny cause there are two people involved.

2. The clito-what?

A clitoris is to a woman what a penis is to a man. The more people accept and acknowledge that — the more orgasms women will have. But despite every second person having one, the poor clitoris has long lived in obscurity. It has been discovered and rediscovered by scientists for centuries, but no proper diagram ever existed.

Until very recently, even the information about it in textbooks was incorrect or misleading. A full 3D image of the clitoris could only be mapped by researchers as late as 2009!

The ill-cliteracy is just not cute anymore. Finding the clitoris has become an achievement, and finders are keepers.

Watch this cute animated short "Le Clitoris" for some 101. Follow the work of artist @sophiawallaceartist #cliteracy project and learn more about the female anatomy!

3. They are embarrassed to ask for one

Several women have expressed that they feel asking for an orgasm is obnoxious and will kill the mood, meaning the man's mood. This stems from the belief that women do not deserve the same sexual experience as men, and this stems from years of negative conditioning about sex as being only pleasurable for men.

Women are not taught to want it, let alone enjoy it without being categorized as desperate.

4. Porn has set unrealistic expectations

Porn has set unreal expectations, not only for how women look during intercourse, but also how they sound. Real women are not always turned on and loud, and their vaginas are not white or pink and touched up with foundation. This causes anxiety among women who think their partner wants or expects them to live up to these manufactured standards, and begin to judge the appearance of their vagina.

How then can a woman orgasm while being physically intimate with a partner where instead of enjoying herself, she is preoccupied with being self-conscious?

5. We are taught sex = P in V

Women love sex. But women love different activities within sex, which has all been categorized as foreplay for some reason. We are taught that real sex only means penetration.

Nope.

Penetrative sex has one function — to help a man orgasm. Biologically the vagina is designed to help a man orgasm inside a woman so that she can get pregnant. A woman might feel aroused by penetrative sex, but her level of pleasure will most often never match that of a man's because her clitoris is not involved.

Heck, even most vibrators are designed to be inserted in the vagina, leaving the clitoris feeling as ignored as Kevin Jonas. Sex is defined as activitiesassociated with sexual intercourse, which includes everything starting from kissing, dry humping, oral sex, massage, sex toys, etc.

You get the picture.

6. Guilt and self-hate after sexual abuse

One in every five women are victims of sexual abuse.

And sexual abuse has a devastating effect on how women view pleasure and sexuality. It's horrific, but a woman can orgasm without consent. An orgasm is an involuntary reflex to stimulation, much like heartbeat and digestion; it's not something you can control or suddenly stop in the middle.

In cases of abuse, an orgasm is misconstrued for consent, even confusing the victim. It is wrongly considered as enjoyment and is often used against the victim.

7. Assuming all women like the same things in bed

Popular culture and confused scientists have divided a woman's body into spots. C-spot, G-spot, A-spot, U-spot, P-spot, O-spot (other letters in the alphabet are yet to get appropriated). Giving the impression that these are magic buttons that will make every woman come.

Women are not remote-controlled. We are living beings with unique personalities, likes, and dislikes. Our thoughts are never the same, our body is one of a kind, then how can our path to pleasure be the same?

How women orgasm is unique to them, so one has to do the leg work of finding out what each woman likes.

For more insights into the female orgasm, follow Nogasms.

Let's make orgasms great again!

Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.